“…In addition to causing substantial human suffering for women, there are well-established adverse impacts of untreated perinatal mental health problems on pregnancy outcomes, infant growth and development, and offspring educational attainments (Stewart, 2007 ; Stein et al ., 2014 ; Glover et al ., 2018 ). Evidence from South African studies shows negative impacts of postnatal depression or psychological distress on short- and long-term child outcomes, including respiratory tract infections, recurrent wheezing or asthma (MacGinty et al ., 2018 , 2019 , 2020 ; Kariuki et al ., 2020 ), stunting (Avan et al ., 2010 ; Tomlinson et al ., 2006 ), and mental health problems (Verkuijl et al ., 2014 ). Risk factors include a complex combination of genetic, biological, social, psychological and environmental factors.…”